CHAPTER 16: Encountering Relational Complexity

ABSTRACT

The notion of practice has been, and continues to be, problematic for the work of teaching and learning. The problems at the crux of practice are revealed in the narrative accounts of three representative prospective teachers' experiences. These narratives grapple with the nature of practice and consider what it means to learn to teach. In particular, the practical effects of these teaching/learning experiences position the reader to confront the role of relational complexities within teaching. Relational complexities are explored as the given particularities of students, teachers, context, and subject matter. Drawing on Schwab's (1970) “arts of the practical” deliberately fostering teachcr experimentation with ways to access and attend to the relational complexities of classrooms, the internal goods furthering the work of learning are encountered. Teacher investment in practice demands attention to the relational complexities of classroom life. But, such experimentation and attention is desperately missing in the narrative accounts shared in this paper. The arts of the practical offer a ground for teacher education that acknowledges relational complexities encountered and generated are integral to the practice of teaching. Prospective teachers need to live the language of practice through encountering, negotiating, and articulating the relational complexities of classrooms. The narratives evidence the potential relational complexities hold for understanding the arts of practice and the powerful significances of entrusting/distrusting these arts of practice to teachers and their students.